Mission – Ministry – Life
Navigating change is a skill. A skill we will need as we emerge from Covid lockdowns. The world has changed, and we need to learn to live in it again. The ‘transition bridge’ idea is sometimes used to help mission workers. Although based on David Pollock’s book about Third Culture Kids the ideas are a... Continue Reading →
You can't have a discussion about mission, justice and poverty without some reference to When Helping Hurts: How to alleviate poverty without hurting the poor and yourself (Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert). Not everyone agrees with it but the book makes important claims and provides some helpful ways to think about this area. The companion... Continue Reading →
Back last year I read Anna Hampton’s book Facing Danger: A Guide Through Risk (Zendagi Press 2016). Then earlier this year did the Risk Assessment and Management workshop that she and husband Neal run. So, what follows is a bit about both. The book aims to guide cross cultural workers through a Biblical discussion on... Continue Reading →
J Daniel Salinas Taking up the Mantle: Latin American Evangelical Theology in the 20th Century Langham Global Library 2017 Before the 20th Century Protestant Christianity largely seemed a failure in Latin America. Today 20% of the population are evangelicals and they have an increasing influence on politics and social life. Salinas’ book looks at the... Continue Reading →
What’s cultural intelligence? It’s a bit like IQ but related to culture, the ability to recognise different and unfamiliar cultures and interpret what’s going on - the capacity to work and relate across cultures. We all look at the world through cultural spectacles. Guinea pig? In the UK people think of pets, in parts of... Continue Reading →
We restarted the Nintendo Wii during lockdown after a gap of several years. The Wii fit ‘fun’ activities are gentle exercise to give us a break but maybe they also provide illustrations for some of the key challenges as I sit at my desk. Tilt table. The aim is to tilt the table so the... Continue Reading →
Sebastian and Kirsteen Kim, Christianity as a World Religion: An Introduction 2nd Edn. Bloomsbury, 2016 Back in the last century when I was at theological college, I learned some church history. It helped me understand some of the progression of the early church, and the various movements and people which influenced British Church life. Inevitably... Continue Reading →
Under the cover of darkness, a statue of a Black Lives Matter protestor has been placed on the plinth where slave trader Edward Colston’s statue had been before it was thrown into the docks in Bristol. BBC news. A sign of changing times? Perhaps. The result you would expect a committee on a replacement statue... Continue Reading →
Do we really need another post by a middle-aged white man? Probably not, but if the alternative is silence then my keeping quiet could indicate complicity (or refusal) which would be even worse. Nevertheless, in spite of this blog, the real choice I want to make is not a decision to speak but a decision... Continue Reading →
In the last blog I looked at some of the questions and issues that have been part of my daily life over the last month or so as Coronavirus has spread; using the idea of this pandemic as a blizzard, leading onto winter and an ice age. So now the blizzard is clearing it is... Continue Reading →
